I Can’t In Good Faith Support Ultimate Skyrim

I didn’t think I would be talking about Skyrim in 2019, but I am. Skyrim is my favorite game of all time so I always love when I get the chance to write about it. Modding Skyrim has been amazing and has taught me some useful skills that I’ve put to work in some of my own created mods. Ultimate Skyrim is a compilation of mods. Over 200 of them (probably closer to 300) and it’s a bit controversial. Here’s what I think of it.

Mod authors are kind of angry right now and for a pretty good reason in my opinion. Their work is being taken, used, and being profitable by someone else. There’s a tool that lets you download groups of mods on Skyrim called Automaton. Automaton takes the busy work out of modding by doing it for you. If you’re new to modding or are just looking to download some of your favorite mods without having to do the work and install them all yourself this could be a useful tool to have… if it was shrouded in controversy. I’ve been playing Skyrim on and off since 2011. I started on the PS3 and migrated to PC many years later. I’ve grown accustomed to searching and downloading my own mods so this tool is utterly useless to me. Even if I was interested in it I wouldn’t support it. Why? Because I don’t like the tactics that the creator has used to make money from it. When you break it down and think about it the only reason why people are supporting his patreon page is because it allows them to mod Skyrim easier. Mods that aren’t made by him, but are in this mod that he’s advertising.

It’s not illegal, but it is shady as hell in my opinion. His patreon is currently sitting at 458 patrons and he’s earning over $2,300 a month. I understand why mod authors are upset about this. They’re so mad that they’re threatening to pull their mods from the Nexus so nobody can use them.

So why is this patreon account making so much money? Because the only way to use the program (until just recently) was to pledge at least $5 so you could use Automaton and download all of the mods in a bundle so you wouldn’t have to do it manually. All this person did was choose their favorite mods on the Nexus, group them up together in one large package, and sale it to Skyrim gamers. Now, I’ll give credit where its due and say that, yes, they did create this program, but I highly doubt that you would be making anywhere near the amount of money a month on patreon if you were honest and didn’t have any of those mods (you know, the ones you didn’t create) in your bundle. There’s not much the mod authors can do except watch you make a killing on their hard work. And I’m sure you did work hard creating this program, but it’s a program that I have no use for and don’t plan on supporting or giving positive feedback on.

I learned about this from my friend, Steve. He just completed Skyrim and he loved it so much that he wanted to play it again but with mods this time around. So he called me because I’m pretty much a master at modding now. He wanted to know what I thought of this mod and I told him I’ll look into it. Steve, I will help you mod your game. If I have to go over to your house and do it myself I will. Don’t download this shit. I’ll get you whatever mod you want and I know you read my content here :).

Back to business. Automaton sounds really good on paper. It really does. A tool that lets us group mods together and downloads them all at the same time, but it comes with a paywall and with the way things are looking Skyrim’s modding community is about to get a little smaller because some mod authors have already removed some of their mods from the Nexus. I’ve been thinking about firing up Skyrim again and, thankfully, I use Special Edition. This mod isn’t there yet. Now, when it gets there I expect the same backlash that it’s getting now. Don’t support this shit. It’s unethical and downright shady. It’s not illegal, but that doesn’t make this right. Mod authors work really hard to create content for us to enjoy. The least this asshole could do is give back to them and by giving back I don’t mean donate 5% of your $2,000+ you get every month to Nexus Mods. You should give a percentage of what you make to the people that did the work and is the reason for your shit program existing in the first place.

There are a LOT of mods in this package. And many of them are fantastic mods that you can get with a simple search on the Nexus. You don’t have to pay $5 to access the download features on Nexus or $10 (or $25) to get some stupid looking icons on Discord or chat with the creator. No conversation is worth $25 in my opinion. So what exactly is Ultimate Skyrim? Ultimate Skyrim makes Skyrim harsher by adding survival elements to the game. Shit like permadeath, eating, sleeping, and all that boring shit that’s in other survival games. Why anyone would want that in Skyrim confuses me, but if that’s what you like go ahead and download all of the mods on that list and support this shit. Ultimate Skyrim does more than add survival mechanics to the game. It also overhauls the gameplay with Requiem, overhauls the A.I of the enemies you fight in battle, and make one on one encounters dangerous because if you die it’s literally game over. Your character will be dead for good. There’s texture mods, gameplay mods, perk tree overhaul (Requiem), and much, much more here, but I would rather tailor Skyrim for MY own personal enjoyment and not get everything that’s listed here. If you’re new to modding this might seem like a great place to start, but it isn’t. Do you really want permadeath in Skyrim? Seriously ask yourself that question before you decide to download this mod. Or just watch a Twitch streamer play and decide if it’s for you. As for me, I’m not supporting this and I’ll probably end up talking about this on the next episode of Pete’s Corner.

Share Your Thoughts!

3 Comments

He might have created the program, but he’s profiting off of others work and that’s not right. It also sounds like he’s an art thief. It obviously gets into tricky territory since technically the mod artists are basing their work off of Skyrim, which isn’t their property, but this is something I’ve been warned about as a fanfic author. People either stealing your work or ideas. There isn’t much recourse since it’s not based on original work, but I feel that even if you’re using established characters/settings, you can still have original ideas, and I’d extend that to modding as well. I don’t blame you for not supporting, and I think people should know about this, because it’s not fair to the artists.

That’s how I’m looking at it. He’s an art thief and I will not support something like that. I’ve already convinced my friend that was interested not to support it too. I told him I’ll mod his game for him if he doesn’t feel like doing it lol. I don’t there’s any trick about it. Yes, mod authors are creating content for a product they don’t own, but it’s still their work. They still put dozens of hours of their life into a game that they love. Some mod authors have gone as far as to remove their content from the Nexus because they don’t want their work used without their permission.

Absolutely, and yup, you’re still putting hours of work into something, and even though they’re not your characters, it’s STILL your art. Fair use is a messy area that I’m constantly wading through, but you know if you’re stealing art and at the very least you give credit.